Inside the Star

Parents denounce pending closing of Thistletown Regional Centre

Ontario’s most vulnerable children, youth and adults are the losers in the province’s decision to shut down Thistletown Regional Centre in Etobicoke, says Richard Bradley, whose 23-year-old son, Nathan, attended the centre for years.

Dr. Eric Hoskins, Minister of Children and Youth Services, told the Star there are currently no plans for the Thistletown Regional Centre site and that the government will not be making any cuts to funding for services as a result of the pending closure.

By:Valerie HauchStaff Reporter, Published on Tue Mar 20 2012

Ontario’s most vulnerable children, youth and adults are the losers in the province’s decision to shut down Thistletown Regional Centre in Etobicoke, says Richard Bradley, whose 23-year-old son, Nathan, attended the centre for years.

The province announced Monday that the 400 children and youth who are in day programs at the facility — which treats clients with complex mental health, behavioural and developmental challenges — will be transferred to community-based agencies. The 15 individuals who live there now will also have to leave and the province has promised to “work with families’’ to provide “individualized transition plans.’’

However, the problem with the government’s plan — which follows a very similar plan in 1995 which collapsed under parental pressure — is that there are “no places’’ that will take many of the children and youth who are at Thistletown, says Bradley, whose son has autism.

“You end up there because community programs can’t serve you — they haven’t been able to serve you. It’s the last hope of service for anyone.’’

His severely autistic son had been turned away from many community agencies who said they couldn’t handle him. He was able to start at Thistletown when he was “about 4 and it was “a godsend.’’ He was there for about 10 years and improved and now lives in a group home.

Bradley says many parents fought against the closure then, which was initiated by the Bob Rae NDP government, and were able to successfully persuade the Mike Harris government not to close Thistletown.

Bradley said the battle in 1995 was really about money and it still is. “It’s a huge chunk of property — they want to sell the land.’’

Dr. Eric Hoskins, Minister of Children and Youth Services, told the Star there are currently no plans for the site and that the government will not be making any cuts to funding for services as a result of the closure.

“There are enough’’ community-based programs and services for all of those clients now receiving them at Thistletown, he said.

But the guardian of an autistic man, one of the 15 who lives at Thistletown, challenges that claim. She said she has not even been contacted by the government about moving her brother, who has lived there for almost 40 years, since he was 5. The family heard about the closure through a radio announcement.

Her brother is also developmentally delayed and “has nowhere else to go,’’ she says. Once when he was a teen and once in 1995, officials tried to move him out into community facilities. Both times the facilities decided they couldn’t handle him.

The last time the community facility turned him over to the Queen St. mental health centre where he got bed sores because he was in restraints for so long, says his sister. Eventually he went back to Thistletown where “he’s calm. He feels it’s his home,’’ she said.

The only place he’s ever been calm is Thistletown because staff there know how to deal with him and they have a “comprehensive program.’’

Glenn Caldwell, elected provincial representative for OPSEU members working with the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, said there aren’t enough community resources to replace the ones at Thistletown.

“Once again, the ministry shuts down a facility with only vague suggestions that these services can be provided by community agencies,’’ she says.

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